Comic-Con International, 2006

Last Wednesday afternoon, upon bolting from work as fast as I could at 3pm, and after some hasty packing, I was on my way to San Diego. It was the yearly trek for the San Diego Comic Convention. I will go into my adventures at length later, but for now, here are some pictures I took. They are mostly for the benefit of my older brother, because despite his disdain for most of the things I like, he was midly curious as to what this thing was all about. He did benefit from it somewhat, as I was able to secure some little trinkets for the upcoming horror film "Snakes on a Plane." On the other hand, while I did charge up my camera battery, I somehow managed to leave behind my SD card. So I was limited to a few pictures on the camera's memory. I wish I could have taken more. *sigh* Here are a few:









There are a few more pictures to come, including one of the Stormtrooper platoon marching in formation on their way to the Con, and pictures of my loot. Yes, there is loot. Quite a bit for just one and a half days of madness. But despite it all, I manage to keep my purchases to under $300, which includes my hostel room, gas money, and food. Wee! I can't wait for next year!

Ta!

Baby Name of the Day - July 24th

Today's Baby Name of the Day is:

"Eleanor
Style: Antique Charm, Ladies and Gentleman
Nicknames: Nell, Ellie, Nora, Lana
Variants: Elinor, Eleanora, Leonor
Sisters: Evelyn, Josephine, Clara, Violet, Beatrice
Brothers: Louis, Everett, Willis, Charles, Marshall
* Our unscientific survey ranks Eleanor and Lillian as the names men and women disagree on the most. Women find them gentle and dignified: elegant ladies with a backbone. Men just think they sound old. How could men be so wrong...er, I mean, what an unfortunate difference of opinion. If you can talk him into Eleanor, there's a great selection of nicknames he can pick from."


Note: For references, see post "Baby Name of the Day - July 17th"

Baby Name of the Day - July 17th

Well folks, upon exploration of the local Barnes and Noble, Catherine discovered a fascinating book about baby names that I decided I just had to get. Our subsequent perusal led us to all sorts of interesting facts and commentaries on baby names. So, I'm going to start posting some of them, just for fun. Mind you, this is a more contemporary take on names, as opposed to the traditional: "Lauren comes from Laurel, which is a tree."

Our first name comes from the boys' section:

"Angel - Style: Androgynous, Latino, Latina
Sisters: Alondra, Valeria, Dulce, Esmeralda, Amaya
Brothers: Jesus, Alejandro, Andres, Xander, Diego
*Like Jesus, Angel is a Spanish hit that's been virtually taboo for boys in English. The pronunciation is key: Said the Spanish way (AHN-hel), it's fashionably suave. With an English pronunciation, it's still chiefly for girls and vampires."


*Note* All baby names and facts in this post and subsequent posts are taken from Laura Wattenberg's book "The Baby Name Wizard," published by Broadway Books, New York, 2005.

Update on the War

Catherine from DC is here! After picking her up at the airport and driving her to my house, I began the necessary but very short tour of my little pad, and its surroundings. While admiring my plants and telling stories about the stupidities of my landlord and what he did to my porch railing, I spotted one of the enemy. He was brazenly perched out in the open, on the railing, and by far the largest of them. Goliath, sitting there staring at me. So, I ran into my house, grabbed what munitions I could find and retaliated. Well...more of a preemptive strike really. My poisonous spray from the last battle and another spray that smells like oranges, were employed in direct spraying of the little bastard. And behold! within moments he was kicking and spinning in his death throes and then hung limply from his thread of webbing. Now his pathetic little body is lying curled in a ball on the porch, and I am ecstatic that the spray really worked. Now I know that every single one of those little guerrillas from the other day is dead. Very very dead.

*evil chuckle*

The War of the Spiders

I've noticed over the last few weeks that there has been a lot of cobweb growth on the christmas lights strung on my stair rail. When I pass them, walking up and down the stairs, little shapes go skittering under the lights. Since I have no real way to clean this mess, I decided today to get an adapter for my sink faucet and attach a hose to it.

This I did and after putting it on my faucet, I was ready. I walked the hose through my apartment, out the door, and turned it on. A wonderfully powerful stream of water came flooding out of the hose, and thus the War began. I sprayed the stairs, I sprayed the railing, I sprayed all the nooks and crannies of the stairs, AND I sprayed the tree. I had noticed earlier that there were some fairly large spiders making webs from the top of the tree, over the stairs to the eaves of my house. So I sprayed them too. My spray not being the absolute torrent I had wanted, I was unable to rocket the spiders out over the tree and into the street, smashing their small, pathetic bodies, but I did manage to chase them back into the tree and destroy their webs.

With the long distance artillery expended, I moved to the heat-seaking missles and grenade launchers. I had also purchased a very large can of insecticide that claims to kill ants, roaches and spiders. I started spraying the stairs, the railing, the nooks and crannies, and once again, the tree. Well. Much to my horror, the sneaking little guerrilas had apparently been living en-mass in the tree, waiting to attack. My mass killing techniques forced them out of hiding. There were at least dozens of them. Little tiny buggers, medium sized ones, and those at least as big as a penny. They came dropping out of the leaves, desperately scrambling to get clear of the toxic spray.

I have mixed reactions about this. While I am happy that my spray seemed to be doing a good job of instilling mass chaos within the enemy, I am also horrified that there are so many of the little bastards living in the tree, and that I've been passing them daily, many of them within inches of my cringing skin. Now I'm terrified of walking down my stairs. I mean, who knows what doth lurk in the shadows? After expending my can of poison, I beat a hasty retreat back into my house, with a small feeling of satisfaction at having cleaned up my stairs, but also with apprehension. At some point, I'm going to have to leave, either to go to work, get food, or whittle down the massive pile of laundry I've accumulated. I'm hoping that the spray lingers on the leaves of the tree and on the railing, so as to discourage the enemy from encroaching on my borders...but one never knows...Especially if I've been living along side them at unknown distances for so long without knowing they were there....*shudder*

One last horrifing thought crosses my mind. If that is state of the outside of my house....what is the inside like? How many spies have infiltrated these hallowed grounds?

On Movies

Okay, I just feel the need to express myself about a few things, and I would like you to just nod and smile, and put it all down to Lori being excitable.

I often peruse the Apple trailers site for fun, and not having done so in a couple of weeks, it is only now that I discovered this. Gwen Stacy, The Goblin, The Sandman AND VENOM in ONE movie?? S***. I mean, I really liked Superman, but as Batman is really the only DC character I've ever followed, I consider myself more of a Marvel fan, and seeing this preview nearly made me stop breathing.

Now, despite what I just said about DC, I did like Superman a lot. I can now sort of forgive Brian Singer for ditching the X-Men the way he did (although I can't forgive James Marsden, aka Cyclops, for following him). But I would like to note one thing. You can put this down to my being a big Kevin Spacey fan. I think I know now who I'd vote for if a choice came up on who will play Spider Jerusalem, if they ever get around to making a movie out of the Transmetropolitan comics. I mean, I love Patrick Stewart, but I can't see him playing Magical Truthsaying Bastard Spidey as well as Kevin Spacey. I must admit, when I first heard he was playing Lex Luthor, I couldn't imagine it. But now that I have seen the movie twice, I am convinced that he could pull off Spidey with a bang.

Whew. Okay. I needed to get that off my chest. There will be more on movies to follow, as I am still trying to collect my thoughts. Oh! and don't forget about the biggest movie of the summer! Yarr!